Manifesto/Birthday Song

Maya calls me phenomenal. I smile
and try to believe her. Charles sends me a message, and tells me that somebody
shouted, on a rooftop somewhere, that they wouldn’t be able to sell me plastic
surgery if they had not yet convinced me that I am not enough. I hear that natural
hair is for some people, not others.

I look at God and ask:

What?

I twist myself, twist and turn,
trying to shake off the slavery that somebody left on me. I turn my pockets out
to let the photographs fall to the ground; slow, silent. Pictures they left in
my jacket to show me how many shades glorious my skin is missing. Pictures to
tell me that my nose, Nina-esque and incredibly present, is getting in their
way.

But it’s my birthday today. I am
coming out of the Creator’s womb, shameless and unexhausted. I am basking in
the sound of the trumpets I have chosen to blow on the premise that this life is
mine. I am meeting your smirk with a smile, Wangari-unbowed and Eartha-proud. See,
I have found the oil wells in my living room, pumping sure and hard. I am in
life.